I think I’m one of the one-fifth

On a few trips to Kingston recently, before realising I could use Oyster / Contactless, I had to use the automatic ticket machines at Waterloo and was shocked at how baffling I found it at first.

After a few tries it was a breeze, selecting the ticket more with muscle memory than attention to the user interface, but those first few uses, when it felt more like a test than a customer service, had me wondering how and why the experience is so unfriendly.